WoW boss says: We don’t want to be what the internet says we are

WoW boss says: We don't want to be what the internet says we are

The World of Warcraft team took the allegations of sexism very seriously. But the boss thinks you’re on the right track.

Important days are ahead for World of Warcraft, because the next expansion “Dragonflight” is in the starting blocks. This is not only of great importance for WoW, since Shadowlands has scared many players, but also for Blizzard. After all, Blizzard has had to deal with many scandals in recent years and the biggest one was probably the sexism scandal – which many investigations are still ongoing.

Where did the statements come from? In an interview with Preach, WoW’s game director Ion Hazzikostas spoke about these issues as well. Preach asked how Blizzard had dealt with the turbulent past few years. After all, there was not only the Covid pandemic, which led to a lot of “home office” at Blizzard, but also the allegations of harassment and sexism, especially in the WoW team. Hazzikostas said:

The other ‘big event’ of the last year – this triggered a sustained period of self-reflection for the whole team. Beginning last summer, we’ve looked inward at our culture and past to honestly ask ourselves, ‘Are we what the internet says we are? Is this who we really are?”

And the answer we came to was, “No.” But we certainly don’t want to be like that and there should be no possibility that we will be. So how do we change our processes, how do we develop a culture of feedback, listening, openness and trust that ensures even the slightest hint of inappropriateness is brought up and dealt with? So that we never come close to what the allegations from many years ago say.

What does “the internet” mean? What Hazzikostas is alluding to are the opinions of many who have read articles about sexism and abuse allegations in recent years. The criticism of Blizzard was great and the opinions were often very drastic. The studio is riddled with toxic masculinity and a culture of harassment, with men roaming the offices drunk and inappropriately getting too close to the employees.

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Whether Blizzard has really improved in this respect and whether these problems in the WoW team are only a thing of the past is not so easy to determine. But at least the people Preach spoke to on the Blizzard campus seem clearly positive.

What is your assessment of this topic? Should the WoW team and Blizzard be given a chance to show that things have improved? Or have they “blown their chance”?

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